I absolutely LOVE birthday parties! Can't you remember back to your childhood how much fun it was to either go to a friend's birthday party or prepare for your own? That is one of the special traditions, we here at the Rogenmoser household have maintained. No matter whose birthday it is, we have a CELEBRATION!
When the children were young, I often times planned theme parties. For example, we have had Easter Egg Hunts with clowns, Teddy Bear Tea Parties, Summer Fun with Gummie Worm cakes in sand pails, Sesame Street parties, Royal Tea Parties, 50's Soda Shop Parties...you get it, huh? And for the adults, I always plan something according to the season in which the party is in. For example, Robby has a November birthday, so I usually make some sort of tasty soup or pizza bread. A fire is lit and the house is decorated for fall with pumpkins. The table is set with napkins and plates of orange and yellow and somewhere, there is a wonderful holiday scented candle burning. Everyone in the family is invited for these events.
About a year ago, however, I decided to start a "Birthday Club" with a few gals who are either related to me...or should be! We decided to celebrate each member's birthday in a very special way. And if there was more than one birthday in the month, all of that month's birthdays would be celebrated at the same gathering.
So, tonight, we celebrate the August birthday...my sister's! We are having it at my house for this month's celebration, although at times, our celebrations have taken place elsewhere. Like I mentioned before, I just LOVE themes, therefore, upon starting this "Birthday Club", I went around town looking for the "perfect" items to complement our celebrations. My first stop was at a wonderful little gift shop in town called, Terra Home (you can find her on Facebook). She has some very unique items and lucky for me, she had just been to market and had a GREAT selection of birthday items. I bought a festive "Happy Birthday" table runner and 2 great birthday hats (the birthday girl has to wear this). Then, I moved on to Tuesday Morning, where I found some very cute glass, etched birthday plates and I also found some birthday napkins there. Now, that I was "physically" set up for a party (my festive mood was set), I had to decide what to serve.
You never want to serve a very heavy meal at these events, but there are a few things that MUST be served. Every event should have a "special" drink and of course a dessert! I knew right away what the dessert would be..."Little Cakes with Big Attitude" (they also have a Facebook page). What I like to do, is buy several flavors and then cut them into pieces so everyone can have a little taste of each of these delicious cupcakes. So, off I headed to "Little Cakes", where I ended up buying a red velvet, snickers, butter pecan, banana nut, wedding cake and pina colada. The drink was easy to decide upon for this event as well. I went down to Hokus Pokus (local liquor shop) and purchased some Coole Swan. This is a delicious Irish Creme Liqueur with the taste of vanilla and chocolate infused...and served cold...YUM! Another "must" is the glass you serve this yummy concoction in. Make it a rule that whatever is served, it is served in some sort of festive fashion...so I chose my Lolita and other various martini glasses. Finally, I had to decide on the main appetizer. It would be crustinis made from a fresh loaf of brown sugar and walnut bread that I had made 2 days earlier. I sliced the bread and drizzled it with a little olive oil and then stuck it in the broiler. Upon taking the bread out, I mixed together some olive bruschetta, calamata olives, roasted red and yellow peppers, onions and a fresh tomato. These items were chopped up and spooned onto the toasted bread. Topping that with finely shredded mozzarella cheese, I stuck the crutinis back in the broiler just long enough to melt the cheese. And then Voila! Almost everything was done. Another member of the club brought chips and salsa and we were ready for a party!
For the next 3 1/2 hours, conversation and laughter poured around the table as we intermittently enjoyed our crustinis and small tastes of those yummy "Little Cakes". Then it was present time. The way our birthday club does presents, is to buy items you see over the course of the year and save them. When it gets time for that person's birthday, each item is wrapped in tissue paper and then put into a gift bag, giving the birthday girl lots of little surprises to open. What a fun evening and great way to end a week!
So, go on out and grab a few of your closest friends and start your own "Birthday Club". It's a GREAT excuse to have a fun, festive get together...possibly every month!
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Fun! I wish I could see a close up of the runner. You do know how to add the pictures to the actual post. I didn't even notice they were on the side for a while. I wondered why the paragraphs were spread out. When writing your post, click on the photograph icon and add from your computer. I load all the pictures I want first and then go back and forth when writing the post. You just click on the loaded picture and it goes where ever your cursor was in the post. Sorry, long winded... need a glass of Coole Swan now.
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